All posts by Chris.SE
Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Roy:
Double screened cable may certainly help reduce interference getting in via the downlead.
As far as transmitters go, if you are not fussy about which news region you get, you might want to give Waltham a try if predicted reception looks as good/nearly as good on the other/all channels.
When you go to look when you put your postcode in at Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free put your house number in as well in case it changes the prediction a bit. Scroll down the page and click "Detailed view".
Obviously figures in green boxes are good (the higher the better), orange boxes mean variable, red means poor and you'll possibly struggle to get a signal that's reliable.
Here's a trick you might want to try. Point your 450T at Waltham and see if you can get a reliable 55/56 signal from there (no filter at the top). If all multiplexes are reliable and news region isn't an issue, go for Waltham, it's only 2.5km further away IIRC never mind the power. BUT look at any predicted reception changes upto March/April next year. Without being able to look at your specific postcode, on the few random ones I've done, overall Sutton Coldfield seems better.
Now if the Waltham 55/56 is reliable and if the 55/56 signal on Sutton Coldfield is poor to non-existent (&/or can be clobbered with the C59 filter before the booster on you outside aerial), then you could think about combining the two using a low-loss (inductive) splitter in reverse. So no filter on the 450T unless it's giving an interference issue then try the C60 on it. If it's not needed you could put the C60 in series with the C59 on the Sutton aerial all other things being equal. (Note using a splitter in reverse only works with two different groups of channels in this way because each aerial can't get the same channels either because of filtering and/or different transmitters).
Leaving aside the above & any interference you may see on removing the C59 filter in your current setup, if the signal on 55&56 increases then I'd give At800 a ring (0808 13 13 800) and see what filters they actually do, and at worst get them to send you another C60 one if they don't do say a C61. Whether it's wise to mention you already have the C60 one, or just say they fitted this C59 one and it's clobbering your COMs 7&8 on 55&56, I don't know. You could play it by ear, as they say.
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Alan Wood:
Bear in mind two things - it's a different region (Granada for news & some ads, not Central), and the COMs 7&8 multiplexes are only temporary although we don't expect them to close before 2022, nothing has been finalised so it's speculation at present. We may have a better idea early part of next year after the 700MHz band has been auctioned!
Otherwise, you'll need a high gain wideband aerial mounted externally, pointing virtually due N (358 degrees) whereas the Wrekin is 265 degrees (5 degrees S of W). Even though the transmitter is 106km away, you are predicted by Freeview to get good reception of the 8 multiplexes.
FYI the prediction for Sutton Coldfield gives good reception for PSBs 1-3, no reception of COMs 4-6, and very variable for COMs 7&8!
I would leave the aerial for the Wrekin up, or maybe put it in the loft depending on your chimney & location etc., then you'd have a choice of regions. You'd have to tune your "secondary" transmitter first and move the regional channels you want to different LCNs in the 800s, and then manually tune the UHF channels for your primary region.
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Nigel:
It was KarlR who was having the Youview box problem. Anyway, did you manage to get yours tuned to Bilsdale, if so how did you manage it, it could be useful info for others?
The Youview support pages imply you can choose the transmitter during tuning if you receive more than one, but it's unclear when in the process, also initially you enter your postcode. What it doesn't make clear is can you reset your postcode at anytime - does restarting the box by holding the button on the front for 8 seconds do a virtual reset?
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Amanda Michele Henderson:
To be clear, this site does not say any more than the information its given - it's an independent help site. Where did you see that there was "no problem" with the Whitworth Transmitter?
BBC faults information is normally posted up on the specific transmitter page - it's usually an automated process. The BBC site Advice about receiving TV and radio | RTIS does show that there was a fault and it was off-air from 9:07am to 3:25pm on 19th Nov 2019. Hopefully you have now got your signals back.
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Nicholas Anderson:
First point is in answer to your question - No! The radiation pattern of any transmitter is generally done to provide coverage to a particular area. That means that sometimes you can pick up the signal outside the intended area because with the transmitter location and the area it has to serve, it means the signal goes in that direction.
If you want a West Country transmitter, you need to point your aerial in the direction of that transmitter and not a South Wales. If both happen to be in the same direction from your particular location then it's best to do a manual tune to the UHF channels used by the wanted transmitter's multiplexes.
There is one exception that I know of however, and that's in the Carhampton area, where the channels that Kilvey Hill in South Wales were moved to back in the summer, are the same channels as Carhampton. Kilvey Hill is readily receivable on parts of the North Devon Coast. This appears to be a major blunder by DigitalUK, Arqiva and OFCOM!
Second point, I've noticed that several of your posts are appearing twice. When you make a post here, it does not appear immediately, you need to wait a short while. Please don't repeat post because you don't see your post immediately.
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Hi John:
Yes all COMs 7&8 are being moved to UHF55&56 as Single Frequency Networks (SFNs). Whilst you'll be getting the "watchable" signal from Black Mountain, it's possible that you may be getting enough interfering signal from I would maybe have thought more likely Craigkelly but Darvel is a possibility. This is because the bearing for Black Hill is 106 degrees, 78 degrees for Craigkelly and 178 degrees for Darvel. Darvel's power is much lower although it's closer but I would have thought it's not as likely to be picked up by the log periodic as Craigkelly which although further away and slightly higher power than Darvel might just be within the beamwidth of the aerial. Whether it's worth tweaking the aerial 3 or 4 degrees further S, your installer should be able to check. Both are much lower power that Black Hill but you might be in one of those "awkward" spots where the unwanted signals give interference.
You may be better off btw with this log28 and booster rather than a log36, it depends on make. Some log36 gain with in-built filtering is a couple of dB lower at UHF55&56.
Do you have an external 4G filter fitted on this aerial? If so is it a Ch.59 or Ch.60 one?
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John:
Filters from At800 are free! For reference they do two, a Ch59 & Ch.60. The Ch.60 one from At800 is a very high spec. with a sharp cut-off. The Ch.59 one is more suitable where there are no channels being broadcast at the top end of the band.
According to the Televes spec. for the 405403 although they say it's a Ch.59 one, the claimed insertion loss from 47 - 782MHz is only one dB, so it would appear to be a high spec. filter.
It doesn't look as though you could easily take it out of circuit to see what effect it had on Ch.55&56 as it's hard wired in, but with that low insertion loss it probably won't make any noticeable difference. If either of those channels is that close to the "cliff-edge", that needs to be resolved.
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Alan Darlington:
Hmm, this is very interesting !! Whilst Freeview predicted reception (by DigitalUK/BBC/Freeview) is NOT always 100% accurate, you aren't predicted to get any reception from this transmitter - except, according to one Freeview listing Storeton Wales poor reception PSB3 on C42 (with no reception PSB1 C45, D3&4 C39), yet according to another Freeview listing Storeton Wales with variable reception for PSB1 on C57, D3&4 on C53, PSB3 good reception on C60 !!
Also according to mapping, you are within the predicted coverage area! That doesn't mean that there won't be interference that could prevent reliable reception when all retunes are completed.
There is only one retune event for Storeton (Granada) on 10th Feb. where the Local multiplex is moving from C30 to C43. If you have an old group A aerial you will most likely need a new aerial to get it once it moves. If you already have a wideband aerial it shouldn't be a problem.
In your listing above C57 & C60 are supposedly old UHF channels for Storeton before a retune last year, but according to another Freeview listing, as already mentioned, still Storeton Wales. In any event, there will be a retune event on 27th Feb. where those Wales multiplexes on C57, C53 & C60 will move to C45, C39, C42. So the first listing above is the final situation not the current, but it doesn't say that !!
Now then, from what you say you seem to be having unreliable reception BUT it might be due to periodic Planned Engineering. There is none listed by Freeview at present, and (allowing for above comments) you should get all six multiplexes on C28,C25,C22,C23,C26,C29 + C30 (Local) moving to C43 next year.
It may well be worth you checking your installation if reception continues to be unreliable, check all you coax plugs, connections, flyleads etc, unplug connectors check for corrosion or other problems and reconnect them. See what signal strengths and quality you are getting for the multiplexes shown in your TV's tuning section, this might indicate potential issues with your aerial or downlead. Also check that your downlead looks undamaged and that your aerial seems intact and pointing in the correct direction. For Storeton it should have the rods vertical pointing roughly NW.
Problematic connections, water ingress etc. can seem to affect reception of just an individual or several multiplexes.
It's also worth noting that your are predicted by Freeview to get very good reception from Winter Hill and receive all 8 + the Local multiplex. Also note Winter Hill has two major retunes on the 20th Feb. & 22nd April.
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Gregory Murphy:
Oh dear!
Whilst the information on some of these transmitter pages isn't always correct (there are 1100+ transmitters in the UK & the site owner has not been able to keep up for all the 700MHz clearance changes) on this occasion the information is correct. The -10dB for the COM muxes is in relation to the PSB muxes as you've no doubt deduced, and that has not changed with the retune event. They always have been 2kW cf. the PSBs 20kW.
Refer to the UTV pdf document which can be downloaded towards the bottom of Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free corporate/platform-management/700mhz-clearance/clearance-events-2020">Clearance events in 2020 | Freeview (it does include Q4 2019).
The major changes at the retune, was a shift of the PSB channels, of the COMs only SDN had a tweak from 21+ to 21. So there is no "obvious" reason why your customers should have lost any COM multiplexes. Having said that, other changes elsewhere may have resulted in increased interference for some multiplexes in some locations.
I suggest you make use of the Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker, go to Freeview | All your favourite TV shows, all in one place and all for free scroll down a bit to "Check Freeview at my home" and put each customer's postcode and house number in the boxes (in turn) then on the new page scroll down until you get to "Detailed view" & click the button.
You'll then see the predicted reception of the various multiplexes and from which transmitters. Hovering over the channel number will show the transmission mode and power. The predicted reception may change next year as other transmitters complete their retunes. You'll see that from any entries in the tables.
Should I state the obvious, with some of the adverse weather of late, maybe they should be checking that their aerials are intact and still pointing correctly and downleads have not been damaged.
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Sunday 17 November 2019 9:47PM
KarlR:
According to the Youview Support page you're supposed to be able to choose the transmitter when you receive more than one, also during setup it asks for a postcode. I'd guess that a postcode for the wrong region will confuse it, whether you can reset it by turning it off and on (holding the on/off button on the front for 8 seconds) I don't know.